Second-born children more likely to be delinquent, study finds

A study done by an MIT economist and others compared the likelihood of delinquent behavior between siblings. (Shutterstock)

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Saturday, July 15, 2017

First-borns have a new study to lord over their siblings. A study has found that second-born children, especially boys, are more likely to get in trouble.

An MIT economist studied how birth order affects whether a child, particularly a boy, exhibits "delinquency behavior," compared to first-borns in the same family. Joseph Doyle and his colleagues defined delinquency in terms of "disciplinary actions and truancy at school, juvenile delinquency, and adult crime and imprisonment."

The researchers looked at sets of data involving tens of thousands of brothers in two different settings: Denmark and Florida.

"In families with two or more children, second-born boys are on the order of 20 to 40 percent more likely to be disciplined in school and enter the criminal justice system compared to first-born boys even when we compare siblings," the study reads.

Doyle told NPR this may be caused by a number of factors, including the second child's need to compete for attention, and the presence of such a young role model in the second-born child's life.

"The first-born has role models, who are adults. And the second, later-born children have role models who are slightly irrational 2-year-olds, you know, their older siblings," he said.

The study mainly focused on differences in second-born boys and their siblings, and found a less significant difference among girls and their siblings.